A key food group on any diner menu or cross-country road trip, milkshakes are one of the absolute best sweet treats. Whether you prefer a homemade vanilla shake or a specialty flavor — such as the huckleberry milkshake at Kalispell, Montana’s Norm’s Soda Fountain — you can’t beat a milkshake on a hot summer day. One of the most reliable sources of shakes is McDonald’s, which always has chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry options on its menu. These shakes, however, never have “milk” in their titles — a decision McDonald’s intentionally made across its restaurants.
According to the fast food chain’s website, McDonald’s decision to forgo “milk” from its “shake” category was a deliberate response to dairy regulations. That’s because the brand produces shakes using a reduced-fat soft serve and didn’t want to worry about varying, state-specific dairy rules. The exact milkshake criteria range from state to state, but each state tends to outline specific percentages for how much milk fat a milkshake can contain, alongside other required or prohibited ingredients. In Massachusetts, a milkshake actually can’t contain any cream whatsoever, rendering most traditional milkshakes as “frappes” instead.
Rather than worry about these logistics across locations, McDonald’s skipped the “milkshake” title for all of its eateries. As for what, then, goes into a McDonald’s milkshake? It seems to be all about that soft-serve, which isn’t quite ice cream as we know it.
McDonald’s shakes don’t always classify as milkshakes, according to state-by-state dairy laws
St. Patrick’s Day’s love-it-or-hate-it Shamrock Shake is, in fact, aptly named — not only because the label uses alliteration, but also because it skips any mention of milk. Per McDonald’s nutritional information, a typical vanilla soft serve is made with a multitude of ingredients and additives, rather than just milk or traditional ice cream components. Specifically, a standard vanilla cone pairs milk with sugar, cream, corn syrup, natural flavorings, and a slew of other additives.
This laundry list of ingredients positions McDonald’s soft serve outside the legal parameters for a milkshake in many American states. After all, that soft serve provides the baseline for a McDonald’s shake, which — unlike the company’s soft serve — hinges on just three ingredients. For a vanilla shake, McDonald’s nutritional information pinpoints a base of that reduced-fat vanilla soft serve. McDonald’s then combines that key ingredient with vanilla shake syrup and whipped cream.
Regardless of ingredients and the semantics they’ve sparked, McDonald’s shakes tend to be a crowd-pleaser. Not unlike a McDonald’s McFlurry, which is similar to Dairy Queen’s Blizzard, a drive-thru shake warrants its own category — and promises to satisfy your dairy cravings.
